


we all will be together, if the fates allow

by orphan_account



Category: LazyTown
Genre: Christmas, Established Relationship, Growing Up, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-12 00:04:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9046502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Christmas feels different this year, and Sportacus doesn't like it. He doesn't like it one bit.





	

Winter days are so short that the sun is just rising above the rooftops when Stephanie finishes her last lap of the morning. Her breath makes small clouds in the cold air as she catches her breath, leaning against the stone fence for support.

“What were my splits on that run?” she finally gets out after a moment, and Sportacus looks at her with a cheeky smile. He looks back down at the stopwatch, his smile grows a bit wider, and Stephanie pouts a bit, expression amusingly immature for a 16-year-old. “C’mon, tell me!”

“You did very well. Your first mile was about seven minutes, and your second was about eight!”

Stephanie pumps her fist in the air in excitement, beams back at him. “I know college scouting isn’t really until spring, but I feel so much more ready for it now.”

He reaches over the wall, pats her on the shoulder – and then, after a moment of thought, pulls her into a hug. “I’m very proud of you,” he says into her hair (which, he realizes with a start, he barely has to bend over to reach now). She smiles back up at him, and his heart feels especially full of love for the pink-haired girl ( _teenager_!) this morning. He’s not sure why he feels so sentimental today, maybe because it’s Christmas?

“I’m gonna go back to my Uncle’s house and change,” she says suddenly, pulling back to leave the park. “Are you going to go back to the airship before the Christmas party?”

“No, I’m going to go wake up Robbie and make sure he shows up on time.” Stephanie gives him a knowing smile and a wave and jogs off towards her uncle’s house, leaving Sportacus alone by the track.

()

He flips and tumbles his way to the billboard as usual, but something’s weighing him down. It’s not quite sadness – it’s Christmas, and he’s going to spend it in the town he’s grown to adore, with the people he’s grown to care about, with (and this still makes his heart leap a bit, even years later) the man he loves. Everyone is healthy and happy, and from the horror stories he’s heard from the other elves, he’s certain LazyTown has the most well-adjusted group of teenagers in the world. He doesn’t see the other ones quite as often, but he hears all about them from Stephanie, and they’ll all be at the party this afternoon, so it’s fine, right? Sportacus has every reason to be content and happy, and perhaps that’s what makes the unsettling feeling that he can’t shake even worse.

He opens the pipe and climbs down quietly, even landing as gently as possible to avoid waking Robbie up. Sportacus glances over at the chair, where the villain (ex-villain?) is still asleep, breathing evenly and clutching his blanket to his chest. The elf smiles at him fondly, then turns his attention to occupying himself for the next hour or so. It’s still only about 8 o’clock, and the party isn’t until 11. He could probably get away with waking up Robbie at 9:30, but anything earlier than that is probably unforgivable.

Sportacus wanders into the kitchen and frowns at the extensive collection of cakes Robbie’s baked for the party on the counter – but grudgingly admits that the icing and fondant decorations are beautiful. Robbie had to find something to with his time when he cut back on the ceaseless schemes, and while Sportacus wishes he’d picked up something a little more… healthy, he’ll be the first to admit that the cakes his boyfriend makes _are_ lovely. He misses the schemes a little sometimes, but Robbie was right in saying that there’s not much of a point in them nowadays. Once he’d stopped actively trying to run the hero out of town, they were more for the benefit of the kids than anything else, and when the kids stopped really enjoying them and played along more for the villain’s benefit, well… They _were_ a lot of energy and work, especially for someone who treasures his rest so much.

Sportacus wanders back into the main room of the lair, and does 30 pushups just to get the energy out, then 30 more one-armed pushups just for fun. To his credit, Robbie doesn’t stir at all, and Sportacus decides to give him just a bit more time. He surveys the room, trying to find something to entertain himself. There’s a pile of gifts by the orange chair, carefully picked out for all of the kids. _Teenagers_ , he thinks involuntarily again, _they’re teenagers now_. Sportacus sighs, and continues to look around. The Santa disguise that Robbie wore the first Christmas Sportacus spent in LazyTown is out in one of the capsules, and that brings the smile back to the elf’s lips a little. _So much has changed_ , he thinks, and initially a swell of affection rises in his chest when he looks over at the sleeping man. But – _again! Why can’t he stop thinking about this?_ – he’s reminded that that the kids have also changed, and he flips over in frustration and starts doing handstand pushups.

“Sportacus?” comes a sleepy (and mildly annoyed) voice from the chair. The elf springs back to his feet, and smiles.

“Good morning, sleepyhead.”

“What time is it?” Robbie asks, and fakes gagging when he sees the clock, blinking the sleep away. “Why on earth did you think it would be a good idea to wake me up at _10 o’clock_ on a Sunday?”

“The Christmas party starts in an hour, we don’t want to be late!” Robbie glares at him, pulls the blanket back over his chest in protest. Sportacus gently leans over, kisses him on the cheek. “I’ll make you breakfast if you get up. I know it’s early, but do it for me?” he asks.

Robbie hesitates, pulls the blanket back down a little. “Only if they’re _real_ pancakes, none of those imposter almond flour and pumpkin ones.”

“Okay,” Sportacus says, and gives Robbie his brightest smile before going off to the kitchen. He can’t even _tell_ when Sportacus uses the almond flour. It’s still fair if he can’t taste it, right?

()

They arrive on time, cakes and gifts in tow, but aren’t the first ones there. Pixel’s setting up the sound system, and Stephanie’s helping Bessie finish the place settings. The whole room turns and waves at the two of them when they walk in, and Sportacus reciprocates in kind. Robbie probably _would_ – he’s mostly over trying to hide his affection for the town, even if he can still be prickly sometimes – but his hands are occupied by a large, multi-tiered cake.

“I’m going to go put this with the rest of the food,” Robbie says, and Sportacus watches as he basks in Bessie’s praise. He doesn’t immediately walk back over to the elf, a small sign of comfort with the rest of the town that makes Sportacus smile.

“Sportacus!” The voice comes from the doorway behind him, and he’s caught in a hug the second he turns around to see the speaker. _Ziggy’s almost as tall as me_ , he realizes with a start even as he hugs the blond boy back. Sportacus has seen Ziggy in the past few days, but he supposes he’s never really realized it until seeing him so close up.

He feels a little more disconnected as the afternoon goes on. Trixie and Stingy show up bickering (but they’re thick as thieves nowadays), and Sportacus is _still_ caught off-guard by Trixie’s hairstyle – he vaguely remembers Stephanie saying it was called an ‘undercut,’ which makes sense, he _guesses_ – even though she’s had it for almost a month.

The elf finds it a little hard to pay much attention to all the conversation going on during the dinner for some reason, and he only really absorbs bits and pieces of it as he picks at his spinach and strawberry salad (made especially for him by Stephanie).

“…And Pixel was going to show me some apps for keeping track of the stock market, since my parents are _finally_ allowing me to invest it…”

“…A few soccer coaches from colleges talked to me, but I really think I’d rather do track, so I’ll have more time to focus on dance _in_ school…”

“…And so, Pinky and I are at the movies together, right? And this _jerk_ sees us holding hands, and is like …”

“…should’ve beat him up!”

“She wouldn’t let me!”

“Hey.”

Sportacus continues to stare ahead, until he feels a bony elbow bump his arm. “ _Hey_ ,” Robbie says, under his breath. Sportacus looks up, a bit out of it. “Are you okay?”

The elf opens his mouth to respond, but Robbie seems to make up his mind before he has a chance to answer, and tilts his head towards the door. “Let’s go outside for a second.”

It’s snowing a bit; not big white fluffy flakes, but tiny ice crystals that sting their cheeks as they walk into the cold holding hands.

“What’s the matter? You’ve been acting weird all morning,” Robbie asks right away, in a tone that to anyone who didn’t know him might be read as annoyance; Sportacus knows him well enough to be able to tell that it’s pure worry.

“It’s just…” Sportacus trails off, looks at the decorations in the town square as they pass through. They’re pretty, but a few nice poinsettias aren’t enough to make him feel better right now. “It’s different this year. Maybe it was different last year, too, but I never really noticed it. Our kids are growing up,” he says sadly. “I really only see Stephanie every day, since I train with her. The rest of them have their own hobbies now, _gods_ , Trixie and Ziggy have _jobs_! They know how to take care of themselves now.”

“ _Our_ kids,” Robbie echoes, not displeased by the phrasing, just a little caught off-guard by it, and by the amount of emotion in Sportacus’ outburst. He recovers fast though, he always does. “Did they not teach you how to deal with kids growing up in your fancy sports elf superhero training?”

“We normally don’t stay in places this long,” he says, looks toward the sky and blinks away the flakes that land on his eyelashes. “Usually we come in, fix any problems, and move on to the next town that needs help.” He leans his head on Robbie’s shoulder. “I just happened to fall in love with this place.”

Robbie makes a _tssk_ noise, and Sportacus can tell without even looking that his boyfriend is blushing, which makes the corners of his lips turn up despite everything. They walk in silence for a few minutes, leaving footprints in the snow that’s beginning to stick to the road.

“It’s different, but… that doesn’t mean it’s _bad_ ,” Robbie says after thinking for a while. “We both knew they were all going to grow up one day, and that we couldn’t do anything about it. But different doesn’t necessarily mean _bad_. Think about it like –” he scrambles for a moment, gesticulating with his free hand as he tries to find a suitable example. “The first Christmas party we had together, I almost ruined it with a giant snowball, but this time I brought a _lovely_ cake, with _beautiful_ decorations that I had time to do since I’m not trying to run you out of town. It’s different, but it’s not _worse_ , you see? Just be your normal, obnoxiously optimistic self and find the less depressing perspective.”

It doesn’t fix _everything_ Sportacus is feeling. He still feels like he’s floundering a bit, because he’s _used_ to problems that he _can_ fix, but it helps. “Different, not bad,” he repeats, and his chest feels a tiny bit lighter.

“Different, not bad,” Robbie confirms, and squeezes Sportacus’ hand a little tighter through his mitten. “Do you want to go back now?”

“Yes, we should,” Sportacus says, and looks up at Robbie. “Have I mentioned lately how much I love you?”

Blushing again, Robbie buries his face in his scarf and looks straight ahead as they start walking back to the town hall. “I suppose so,” he mutters into the fabric.

“Well, I love you,” he says, and hops up on his toes to kiss the former villain on the cheek. He picks up his pace a little as they get towards the town square. They have a Christmas celebration to get back to, even if it _is_ a little different this year. Maybe it’ll even be a little better.

**Author's Note:**

> so this fic was partially inspired by this (http://sportabean.tumblr.com/post/154838928569/i-was-thinking-earlier-about-the-kids-growing-up) post, and also lowkey i have my own existential crisis about growing up every christmas and this one was no exception! so i figured some good ol fashioned projecting onto childrens tv was a good idea. also for the record pumpkin almond flour pancakes are a real thing and they might sound good but i ASSURE you they are a sorry replacement for the real thing. thanks to my mom and her weird paleo diets for inspiration
> 
> anyways i know this is a little depressing for a christmas fic but i tried to make the end very cute and sweet and if you celebrate christmas have a wonderful holiday!


End file.
